If you’ve been thinking about flipping your car, now might be the time to act as used car prices have skyrocketed.
According to Edmunds, trade-in values have climbed nearly $2,000 in the past month. In particular, they noted the average trade-in value was $12,083 in June but jumped to $14,066 in July.
That’s a significant increase in a short period of time and analysts chalked that up to a ‘perfect storm’ of events. One of the key factors behind the increase is greater demand for used vehicles and they only took an average of 38.3 days to sell in July. That’s down from 44.1 days in June and the company noted the “13.1% decrease is the steepest month-over-month drop that Edmunds has on record.”
On top of surging demand for used vehicles, there’s a limited number of new vehicles on dealership lots. This is due to the coronavirus pandemic which has hampered production and left inventories running low.
According to Edmunds’ executive director of insights, Jessica Caldwell, “The used market is experiencing a dramatic recovery” as “used vehicles were sitting almost untouched at the start of the pandemic, and now they’re practically flying off dealer lots.” Caldwell went on to say “Dealers are willing to pay more to acquire inventory to meet the surge in demand for used cars, which is great news for car owners because it means they can expect to get a higher value for their vehicle if they sell or trade right now.”
Of course, these conditions won’t last forever so you might want to act fast if you’ve been thinking about selling your car. That being said, if you trade it in, you might find your options somewhat limited.
H/T to The Drive
